How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Creationism, Evolution, and other science issues

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Purple Knight
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How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1

Post by Purple Knight »

This is not a question of whether or not evolution is crazy, but how crazy it seems at first glance.

That is, when we discard our experiences and look at claims as if through new eyes, what do we find when we look at evolution? I Believe we can find a great deal of common ground with this question, because when I discard my experience as an animal breeder, when I discard my knowledge, and what I've been taught, I might look at evolution with the same skepticism as someone who has either never been taught anything about it, or someone who has been taught to distrust it.

Personally my mind goes to the keratinised spines on the tongues of cats. Yes, cats have fingernails growing out of their tongues! Gross, right? Well, these particular fingernails have evolved into perfect little brushes for the animal's fur. But I think of that first animal with a horrid growth of keratin on its poor tongue. The poor thing didn't die immediately, and this fits perfectly with what I said about two steps back paying for one forward. This detrimental mutation didn't hurt the animal enough for the hapless thing to die of it, but surely it caused some suffering. And persevering thing that he was, he reproduced despite his disability (probably in a time of plenty that allowed that). But did he have the growths anywhere else? It isn't beyond reason to think of them protruding from the corners of his eyes or caking up more and more on the palms of his hands. Perhaps he had them where his eyelashes were, and it hurt him to even blink. As disturbing as my mental picture is of this scenario, this sad creature isn't even as bad off as this boar, whose tusks grew up and curled until they punctured his brain.

Image

Image

This is a perfect example of a detrimental trait being preserved because it doesn't hurt the animal enough to kill it before it mates. So we don't have to jump right from benefit to benefit. The road to a new beneficial trait might be long, going backwards most of the way, and filled with a lot of stabbed brains and eyelids.

Walking backwards most of the time, uphill both ways, and across caltrops almost the entire trip?

I have to admit, thinking about walking along such a path sounds like, at very least, a very depressing way to get from A to B. I would hope there would be a better way.

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Re: How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1371

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #1369]
No, it would not. What is the difference between having faith in the material vs. having faith in the supernatural?

With this whole new idea of panspermia is simply an admission that there is no evidence on earth that life could have started here. So now the materialist is placing their faith in the universe just like those that believe in pantheism or panpsychism. In fact, many materialists speak of the universe in panpsychism terms.
Sure it would. If we find microbial life on another planet and it didn't come from Earth somehow, then it would prove that life can form elsewhere. We have found material from Mars on Earth, and of course asteroids travel through space great distances and hit Earth regularly. Panspermia is nothing new ... it has been around for over 2500 years:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia
I have already demonstrated in a different thread that the resurrection of Jesus proves that God does exist. The resurrection is a historical fact.
The resurrection is a historical story, not a fact. So a conclusion that god exists based on the resurrection story is not a proof ... it is conjecture.
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Re: How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1372

Post by brunumb »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 1:37 pm Well Tour - a highly respected chemist (here's a list of his peer reviewed publications) - disagrees that chemistry and physics have the capacity to form the structures we see in life and his reasons are highly credible, the belief that all these things can "just happen" is just a belief and we never see these things emerge in nature or even in a well equipped lab manned by teams of experts, they don't happen.
Response to James Tour: (Part 1 of 2)
In this Part 1, we discuss how James pretends to be an expert on origin of life research but objectively isn't, and how he deliberately ignores mountains of research regarding the emergence of homochirality.



Response to James Tour: (Part 2 of 2)
In this Part 2, we examine how James is lying about our progress towards prebiotic syntheses of all the major classes of biomolecules, and when it comes to cells, James would rather mislead his viewers with dazzling animations of modern eukaryotic cells than actually dig into the relevant literature. If you thought Part 1 was devastating, strap in.

George Orwell:: “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.”
Voltaire: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
Gender ideology is anti-science, anti truth.

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Re: How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1373

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

brunumb wrote: Tue May 24, 2022 4:44 am
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 1:37 pm Well Tour - a highly respected chemist (here's a list of his peer reviewed publications) - disagrees that chemistry and physics have the capacity to form the structures we see in life and his reasons are highly credible, the belief that all these things can "just happen" is just a belief and we never see these things emerge in nature or even in a well equipped lab manned by teams of experts, they don't happen.
Response to James Tour: (Part 1 of 2)
In this Part 1, we discuss how James pretends to be an expert on origin of life research but objectively isn't, and how he deliberately ignores mountains of research regarding the emergence of homochirality.



Response to James Tour: (Part 2 of 2)
In this Part 2, we examine how James is lying about our progress towards prebiotic syntheses of all the major classes of biomolecules, and when it comes to cells, James would rather mislead his viewers with dazzling animations of modern eukaryotic cells than actually dig into the relevant literature. If you thought Part 1 was devastating, strap in.

Half baked rebuttals by pseudo scientists are very easy to find, you need to improve the quality of your sources.

I was already aware of "Dave" because I always seek out rebuttals myself, always wise to know what one's opponents are thinking and saying.

Here's what I found: “Professor Dave” Goes After Eminent Chemist James Tour
I don’t think origin of life researchers will be too pleased with a video so hopelessly flawed that it makes the community look dumb. If I were Prof. D. I would discretely remove this video. Dead serious.

Some of us with PhD’s in organic chemistry actually understood Tour’s arguments. Where to start with all Prof. D’s errors? I’ll stop at half a dozen.
Bear in mind to that "Professor Dave" is not actually a professor.

This is the video you should have posted, a competent scientist who disagrees with Tour:


If you take the time to watch that debate, you'll soon notice it all boils down to Cronin abandoning the existing biological definition of life and making up a new one. One that matches some of the results of some experiments he's performed - voilà we created life !

Tour on the other hand insists that the established biological definition of life should be retained and our achievements measured with respect to that definition, why on earth would any scientifically educated person not agree with Tour on this central point?
Last edited by Sherlock Holmes on Tue May 24, 2022 11:20 am, edited 7 times in total.

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Re: How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1374

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #1371]
Sure it would. If we find microbial life on another planet and it didn't come from Earth somehow, then it would prove that life can form elsewhere. We have found material from Mars on Earth, and of course, asteroids travel through space great distances and hit Earth regularly. Panspermia is nothing new ... it has been around for over 2500 years:
What makes you think that abiogenesis is more likely to occur somewhere else in the Milky Way than here on Earth? This story still does not explain how life can go from a genome of 4.5E6 nucleotides to 3.6E9 nucleotides here on earth.
The resurrection is a historical story, not a fact. So a conclusion that god exists based on the resurrection story is not a proof ... it is conjecture.
You read the discussion that Dfflugia and I had. What part of the resurrection are you saying is not a fact? (this discussion starts here viewtopic.php?p=1072714#p1072714 and ends here viewtopic.php?p=1077183#p1077183 )

Are you saying that Christianity does not exist and the resurrection has not always been the central message of Christianity?
Are you saying that Jesus never lived?
Are you saying that Jesus never died by Crucifixion?
Are you saying that the Disciples never believed they saw the risen Jesus?
Are you saying that the Disciples were not radially changed?
Or are you simply saying that history is not knowable?

The last option is probably your safest option but feel free to come up with one of your own also.
Last edited by EarthScienceguy on Tue May 24, 2022 10:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1375

Post by Difflugia »

EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue May 24, 2022 10:05 amYou read the discussion that Dfflugia and I had. What part of the resurrection are you saying is not a fact?
Have you read the discussion that you and I had? What part of that discussion do you think you won?
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Re: How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1376

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to Difflugia in post #1375]
Have you read the discussion that you and I had? What part of that discussion do you think you won?
The entire thing. You failed on every one of your arguments. Sorry :(

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Re: How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1377

Post by Difflugia »

EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue May 24, 2022 10:24 am
Have you read the discussion that you and I had? What part of that discussion do you think you won?
The entire thing. You failed on every one of your arguments. Sorry :(
The soft part of me hopes you never find out otherwise.
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Re: How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1378

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to Difflugia in post #1377]
The soft part of me hopes you never find out otherwise.
Any time you want to go spiraling down in defeat again fill free. Until then chalk another one up for the Earthscience guy. :P

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Re: How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1379

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #1376]
What makes you think that abiogenesis is more likely to occur somewhere else in the Milky Way than here on Earth? This story still does not explain how life can go from a genome of 4.5E6 nucleotides to 3.6E9 nucleotides here on earth.
I never said I think abiogenesis is more likely outside of Earth rather than on Earth. And we don't know what the first life forms were or how many nucleotides it had (or exactly how it formed). Panspermia is just the idea that it could have formed outside of Earth ... even before Earth formed ... and got transported here by some means at some point. It is an unproven hypothesis, but if we were to find microbial life (or life of any kind) outside of our planet or solar system, it would lend support to the idea that Panspermia is at least possible.
What part of the resurrection are you saying is not a fact?
The resurrection part. I can happily believe that a preacher called Jesus was crucified by the Romans, but what happened to the body after death is much less clear. It is a story in a holy book (along with other stories of the dead being brought back to life), but to claim it is a "fact" is going too far. It would indeed be a "miracle", and if you believe that things like miracles are real events, then by all means argue that the resurrection miracle happened. But it isn't a "fact."
Are you saying that Christianity does not exist and the resurrection has not always been the central message of Christianity?
Christianity clearly exists as there are millions of practitioners all over the world. It is a very large, organized religion. I think most adherents do belive that the resurrection happened and is central to the religion.
Are you saying that Jesus never lived?
No.
Are you saying that Jesus never died by Crucifixion?
No.
Are you saying that the Disciples never believed they saw the risen Jesus?
So the story goes, but I don't believe they actually did see a physically risen Jesus. Maybe they had too much mead or wine, or engaged in some sort of self-hypnosis and had "visions", or something like that. Or (more likely IMHO) maybe it is all just part of a made up narrative to support the burgeoning new religion and create a good story. Who knows.
Are you saying that the Disciples were not radially changed?
See previous comment. I never met any of the Disciples.
Or are you simply saying that history is not knowable?
Some of it isn't, and some may be storytelling that is open to interpretation as to the validity of the stories. Second hand and third hand accounts are less reliable than original accounts.
The last option is probably your safest option but feel free to come up with one of your own also.
My bet would be that the resurrection account was made up as part of the effort to legitimize the claim of a Messiah and elevate Jesus to that position as part of the building of the religion.
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Re: How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

Post #1380

Post by Jose Fly »

EarthScienceguy wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 12:30 pm
Jose Fly wrote:You're completely dodging the point. ERV's are viral insertions that increase the size of genomes. Do you deny that?
I don't deny that. But Alexei A Sharov Laboratory of Genetics, National Institute on Aging (NIA/NIH) does place parameters around the extent that the size can change.
Although the global increase of genome sizes from bacteria to mammals is a well-known fact, no attempt has been made to model this process. The total genome size appeared highly variable among organisms with the same level of morphological complexity, a phenomenon known as a C-value paradox. These variations in genome size are caused mostly by gene duplication, polyploidy, and accumulation/deletion of intergenic DNA https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1526419/
Well I guess it's progress to see you acknowledge that genomes do increase in size, and even do so exponentially over time.

But then as we'll see below, you seemingly contradict yourself in the same post.
1. He says that there "has been no attempt to model the increase in size from bacteria to mammals.' This means that evolution has no theory for the change in the size of the genome from bacteria to complex organisms. So any reason why this would happen is simply your imagination running away with you.
Um....did you even read what you quoted? The mechanisms by which genome sizes increase (gene duplication, polyploidy, and accumulation/deletion of intergenic DNA) are the theory. When he says no one has modeled the process, he's talking about how no one has constructed a complete model of the ~4 billion history of first life-->mammals. Given all the complexities, variables, and unknowns (e.g., the genome of the first organisms) that's not surprising.
2. Alexei also says that the "genome is only variable among organisms with the same level of morphological complexity."

In other words, the e-coli in Lenski's experiment after 70K generations is still e-coli. Meaning that the size of the genome is still relatively the same.
You're not making sense. I've no idea how you got that about Lenski's experiment from Sharov's paper. First of all, the part you claim to be quoting isn't in the paper. The closest is "The total genome size appeared highly variable among organisms with the same level of morphological complexity, a phenomenon known as a C-value paradox", which is quite different than what you put in quotes.

Second, we know that genome sizes are variable among organisms with differing levels of complexity, such as the oft-cited case of the onion genome being 5 times larger than the human genome. That's actually what the C-value paradox is.
Earthscienceguy wrote:
Jose Fly wrote:Do you deny that ERVs increase genome size? Do you deny that nucleotide insertions occur? Do you deny that they increase genome size?
As cited above observational science indicates that the size of the genome can only change within specific parameters. You keep wanting to jump to theoretical arguments when evolutionary theory does not have any theoretical arguments according to Sharov.
You dodged the questions. Care to try again?

Also, again you are either misunderstanding or misrepresenting what Sharov wrote (see above).
Observational science that the Lenski's experiments provide indicates that after 70k generations there have been no new species and the genome size has not increased.
So now you're disputing that speciation occurs? Are you back to disputing that genomes increase in size, even though you cited a paper that describes how they do so?

You're not making sense ESG.
At this point, it must be reiterated that observational science indicates that there has been no change in the size of the genome in 70K generations. Nor has there been any specialization in a species that is highly adaptable in its acceptance of changes in its genome.

Since there has not been any change in the size of the genome in the Lenski experiment, that would indicate that according to observational science the actual time frame of change is infinite.
Wow....this makes zero sense and you're all over the map. How about we clear things up and start with the basics?

Do you deny that genomes increase in size?
Being apathetic is great....or not. I don't really care.

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